This has happened before, and it will happen again.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4. I want you to say it slowly. SONIC. THE. HEDGEHOG. FOUR. The eight-year-old me just got so excited hearing that. That we were getting a new 2D-only, no-bullshit Sonic game on the consoles was cool enough, but Sega had the stones to actually go and call it SONIC THE HEDGEHOG FOUR? *THE* game that I’ve been waiting for all this time? Sign 8-year-old Carter up!

I traveled back in time and showed 8-year-old Carter this. He freaked the hell out. I don't know if it was from seeing future me, or from Sonic 4. Wait, did I go back in time before Sonic 3 came out? Crap, I don't remember!

Unfortunately, I’m 22 years old now, and I’ve matured…slightly. VERY slightly. I know better. I’ve had my heart broken way too many times by the promise of new Sonic greatness. I know better than to look forward to a new Sonic title with reckless anticipation. I’ve learned…a little. I still keep coming back to the series despite my better inclinations. As such, I anticipate Sonic the Hedgehog 4, but once again, I see only despair down the road.

First, let me introduce you to the Sonic Cycle, created by some anonymous internet citizen who too has seen the heartbreak of crappy Sonic games come and go, but has been smart enough to know that there’s a pattern to this. The image is self-explanatory:

Created by an anonymous genius.

It’d be funnier if it wasn’t true. Pretty much every Sonic game in this millennium has seen the Sonic Cycle come into play. The early details come out, things seem awesome, Sonic fans who have just gotten over the latest abomination in the series forget why they despaired so much and only see the good in the early details. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is following this exact pattern.

Act One: The Hype

To understand why 2D is the proper evolution for the series, one has to understand why 3D Sonic simply has not worked. For one, Sonic Team can’t make a proper 3D camera to save their life – or they can’t leverage the demands of a Sonic game with the principles of 3D gameplay. Sonic Adventure, back on that fateful day of 9/9/99, had plenty of promise to it. It had plenty of speed, big event set pieces (the whale chasing you in Sonic’s first level is still one of gaming’s most notable moments) interesting non-speed platforming sections, and a good soundtrack. It had plenty of good going for it, especially for Sonic fans who hadn’t played a ‘true’ Sonic game in 5 years; Sonic 3D Blast doesn’t count, and let’s just forget Sonic R and its godawful soundtrack ever existed. However, it showed a lot of growing pains as well – the controls were often very loose, the adventure sequences required way too much backtracking, and there was a distinct love for bottomless pits in later levels. Oh, and those Knuckles emerald quest levels? I vomit thinking about those.

Sadly, Sonic Adventure 2 was no steps forward, and a LOT of steps back. The emerald quest levels? Now 2 characters have them! The camera? Still sucks! The music? Now with more awful vocals! Of course, this was after a great early demo that came with Phantasy Star Online that had only the fun initial Sonic level. Sonic Heroes got rid of anything that wasn’t point A to point B gameplay, but still didn’t fix the camera issues inherent with the first 3 games. There were plenty of great set pieces still, and the 3 character idea was unique (like a logical progression of Knuckles’ Chaotix) – although it was mostly just excuses to get you to play the game several times, and to revive characters not seen since the 32X days. For that matter, I actually had a 32X and played Knuckles’ Chaotix. That’s how big of a Sonic fan I am. Shadow the Hedgehog…let’s not talk about that one. Sonic on the 360/PS3? Let’s talk even less about it. The Sonic Wii titles? I’ll cover those, but I don’t want to remember. Sonic Unleashed? After the previous Sonic game, I didn’t even care about this one, despite the inclusion of 2D sections, but the werehog segments just…um…moving on.

No, let's NOT go Super Sonic Racing.

The point is, it’s been a near steady downhill on the quality of Sonic games since Sonic 3. Each new 3D release seems to keep picking away at the goodwill the series has developed thanks to childhood nostalgia. That Sega is wont to re-release the games every so often helps to remind us – these games were GREAT. And they have stood the test of time. The Mario series still relies on its nostalgia to sell, but the fact is also that the games that do come out with the Mario name on them aren’t colossal disappointments – pretty much anything with the Mario name on it is guaranteed to at least have some degree of quality to it (though Nintendo has run Mario Party into the ground with 79,001 sequels) – Sonic fans no longer expect the same from the blue hedgehog’s game. In fact, expecting mediocrity is the order of the day. Sonic’s become the classic rock band that was huge back in the day, but now it feels like they’re just coasting on their success, and you want to think that when something new comes out, that it would be just like the old times, and occasionally you get hints of it, but then you’re reminded that they’re merely a shell of what they’ve been.

Sonic’s become AC/DC.

For those about to get their hip replaced, we salute you!

However, Sonic fans still cling to the excitement of a new Sonic title because they know that greatness can come from this series; they’ve seen it before! They still occasionally see flashes of brilliance even in the modern games, although the flaws and errors in design fluster them. They want to love Sonic, they just can’t. That it appears that Sega and Sonic Team are getting back on track with a 2D-only Sonic on the modern consoles, a return to the basics and to what made the series so exceptional back in the heyday of the great 16-bit console wars, Sonic fans should be excited. Yet, I look on the horizon and I see the next phase of the Sonic Cycle already in play.

Act Two: The Truth Slowly Comes Out

You could say that Sonic 3 was the harbinger of doom for the Sonic series. The first two Sonic games were simple – Dr. Robotnik (he is NOT Eggman. He will never BE Eggman. You will NOT call him Eggman.) is up to some nefarious plot and it’s up to Sonic to save the day. Sonic 3 added in more of a story with Knuckles hero/villain involvement, and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all having slightly different abilities and playing styles. However, this was all good – it added depth to the game, and rewarded exploration, the true hallmark of the Sonic series, not speed. Speed is a deception – the multi-linear levels of the Sonic series have always been what make it great. Of course, playing the 3D Sonic games, you might forget this, as they seem to focus on the Blast Processing lie and the idea that people love non-Sonic characters, so they gave us more speed and more buddies. No one needed Big the Cat. Was Shadow really all that much of a better nemesis for Sonic than Metal Sonic? Rouge the Bat? Meh, I say! And the concepts for the games just seem to be getting dumber – WEREHOG?! Human love interests?! LOVE INTERESTS, PERIOD?! Sonic and the BLACK KNIGHT?! Sonic and the Secret Rings was the least offensive in concept, but its excessively on-rails gameplay coupled with mediocre tilt controls made me want to forget it. I don’t even know if I still have that game. I think I sold it, or paid someone to take it from me.

He is NOT Eggman. And he will NEVER BE Eggman.

Of course, Sonic games keep giving us unnecessary sidekicks. This doesn’t mean that all sidekicks are bad – there’s just a limit before it gets to be too much and you forget that the name of the game is Sonic the Hedgehog, not Sonic and Tails and Knuckles and Charmy the Bee and Vector and Espio and Mighty the Armadillo and Heavy and Bomb and Shadow and Cream and Amy Rose and Rouge and I Could Probably Do This All Day If We Started Including Characters From The Comics, Which I Read Back In The Nineties. The gameplay needs to be focused around quality platforming with Sonic as your core character. You can add in other characters IF they fit – there’s only so much you can do with extra characters before you just start clogging the game up. We’ve only seen Sonic in the limited  Sonic 4 media released so far, but I’m sure Tails and Knuckles will be revealed soon. And then Shadow will find his way in, I bet. And who knows who else will wind up showing up for this affair.

If she shows up in Sonic 4, so help me God, I will destroy something.

And speaking of affairs, Sonic Team isn’t actually developing Sonic 4. No, little-known development studio Dimps is. This is good, right? Keep our series away from the filthy hands of Sonic Team? Well, the problem is, any hope of Sonic Team catching on to their act and improving it is now gone – Dimps has already made 2D Sonic games this millennium. They’re the ones behind the Sonic Advance series and the DS Sonic Rush games. The first Sonic Advance was GREAT – it was a return to the Sonic 2 and Sonic 3-style gameplay, no filler here. You could play as 4 characters, each with their own specialties: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. It was a great game, and over 7 years after the last true 2D Sonic game, getting to play a new 2D game (albeit on a Nintendo system…what?!) was exceptionally thrilling, and I loved every moment of it. The series went down hill from there, though. Sonic Advance 2 was way too focused on insane speed rather than explorative platforming with speed elements – and the level designers LOVED bottomless pits. Looking back on Sonic Advance 1, it was noticeable in the later levels that Dimps was fond of the bottomless pit as a platforming challenge, but Sonic Advance 2 would throw random ones at you while you’re traveling across levels at insane speeds, where it would be practically impossible to miss them at times. The boss fights, which had you constantly running forward, trying to catch up to the boss and avoiding its traps, were supremely annoying. Oh, and to go to special levels, you had to find 6 coins in a stage – in a game that loved to send you flying at top speeds, mind you. Frustration is a light word for my feelings on Sonic Advance 2, despite the great music and fantastic art design.

Sonic is about to meet his doom, yet again

Sonic Advance 3 toned the speed down a bit in favor of a Knuckles’ Chaotix-esque partnering mechanic…despite it being nowhere as good as that game’s. And there were still bottomless pits ahoy, and special levels that required far too much exploration. Sonic 3 got it right – the special stage rings were out of the way at times, but they weren’t wild goose chases, they were rewards for you finding them, for making tough jumps and taking challenging routes. They weren’t just random elements in a level for you to find, to force you to go against the game’s wishes of traveling at light speed and to take the routes it wants you to take, not the route you want to take. Sonic Rush forgot everything Sonic Advance 3 did right and made the game go extremely fast again, adding a turbo button of sorts – and the dual-screen use seemed force. Bottomless pits were still there, too! I sold this game, folks. I SOLD A 2D SONIC GAME. The 3D ones, sure, most of ‘em are shit. But a 2D one? GASP. I made the mistake of playing Sonic Rush Adventure – despite the platforming being slightly better in this one, all the non-platforming elements were sins against the Sonic series. What does boat warfare have to do with Sonic? WHAT?! WHY?!

Will Dimps be pimps?

So you will have to forgive me if I don’t quite want another Dimps Sonic game. They’ve pulled out too much bullshit and have shown far too little actual knowledge of what makes a Sonic game great for me to anticipate another Dimps Sonic game.

As well, the episodic download-only nature of Sonic 4 is kind of disheartening – I wanted a big spectacle, a disc release, something permanent to hold on to, and to say “This is Sonic the Hedgehog 4.” I wanted to go to GameStop and eagerly buy this game when it came out, the same way I was so excited on February 2nd, 1994 when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 came out, and I couldn’t wait until after school to finally play this game I had been so anticipating. I felt that same way in 2002 when Sonic Advance came out on the Game Boy Advance. I want to feel THAT again. Waiting until 3AM to download the first episode once it goes live on XBLA just won’t be the same.

Act 3: But What About The Final Product?

Of course, this is all speculation and at times fanboy rage. Sega seems to be showing some big boy cajones in making this a number release, maybe they see something here that us outside observers don’t. Maybe they’re numbering it because they need to tell us Sonic Skeptics that THIS is the real deal, THIS IS the game you’ve been waiting for since you were a little kid playing your Sega Genesis. Don’t let our failures this millennium, and the wayward directions that Dimps has taken with the GBA and DS Sonic games sway you – you should be excited for Sonic 4. Maybe that’s what Sega wants us to believe.

The Sonic series has fooled me before, though. Sega’s playing their last card with me, by making this Sonic the Hedgehog FOUR. They’re going all in on this one, and if their hand isn’t good enough, I will be done for good with this series. There will be no more Sonic in my life, because I have been letdown by it too many times to keep thinking it will improve. So, Sega and Dimps, re-earn my trust. Give me the payoff my eternal faith in the series deserves, or I will not be there the next time.

Besides, I’m sick of that fucking plumber having it so well off. SEGA GENESIS 4 LYFE!

Its not often that two completely different intellectual properties mix together so well. On paper, Aliens vs. Predator sounds like a winning combination. Sadly it didn’t take long for Hollywood to shake our confidence in this galactic struggle. Before this dark time, Monolith Productions and Rebellion Developments showed us that the combination could work with Aliens vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator 2.

Its been about a decade since these classic PC shooters, and it is about time the series gets a reboot. Rebellion Developments is back and hoping to breathe some life back into the franchise. Alien vs Predator gives gamers the unique opportunity to play as three completely different creatures, each with a different play style. Humans are standard soldiers, equipped with guns and power armor. Aliens are fast, can run up walls and regenerate, but only have melee attacks. The Predator is a solitary super soldier that can cloak to get in position to use its powerful wrist blades or shoulder cannon.

Unlike other games that focus on the Marines blasting apart hordes of enemy aliens, Aliens vs. Predator tells the story from all three points of view. That means three campaigns and three different multiplayer teams. The multiplayer modes made previous iterations stand out and will be what makes or breaks things this time around as well. With modes such as Infestation, Predator Hunt and Survivor, I would say that there is great potential.

If you enjoy shooters, then keep an eye on Aliens vs. Predator. If executed well then this could be a refreshing change from your run of the mill space marine frag fest. After all, what is better then sneaking up on an unsuspecting marine and ripping his spine out? Oh. Yeah, this game is gonna get gory.

Dear Sega, Please bring back the awesome 2D Sonic games.  Your trip down 3D Avenue was fun, but it just did not feel right.  Thanks – Gamers

Dear Gamers, Your pleas are going to be answered.  We will not tell you more, but we shall bestow upon you a teaser website.  Look here and see that we have heard the begging and crying.  More to come!  You’re Welcome – Sega

Thank you gaming gods for making Sega finally take Sonic back to his 2D roots!?!

Seeing as how I am, and always have been a fan of both the Aliens and Predator movies, Alien Vs. Predator has been on my radar for a while. I am still sad to know that the Aliens RPG is probably never going to be made, but I will take what I can get… I guess. The real question is whether the game delivers everything that, in all honesty, it SHOULD.

This will be the third actual AvP game, though most console owners have probably never played any of the previous incarnations. There have also been countless versions of each of the title’s premier factions, meaning individual games featuring either Aliens, Predator, or Colonial Marines fighting aliens. These game date as far back as the Atari, believe it or not.

The forthcoming installment is brought to you by SEGA and Rebellion Developments. In production since late 2008, AvP looks to bring all three factions together in one big game. That’s right, you get to play as all three groups! Supposedly the plot is similar to the first AvP movie. That doesn’t exactly sound all that great, I know, considering the movie wasn’t exactly the best in the series. That being said, making a game out of the plot, with some changes, could actually be a lot of fun. Apparently a mining colony has stumbled upon an ancient pyramid. Upon it’s discovery, Predator “Hunters” are dispatched to make sure that the “Alien” species that are locked away inside it don’t get lose. Also on the call are the Colonial Marines, who are dispatched to check the pyramid, just to be safe. If the movies have taught us anything, bad things are bound to happen to all three, with more than enough bloodshed to go around.

The single player campaign isn’t all the game has to offer. The previously announced multiplayer component could be a lot of fun as well. You will be able to play the usual modes of both single and Team Death Match, and probably some form of CTF, but the ability to choose your race of choice is the real star.

Each faction has its own strengths and weaknesses:

• Marines use big guns but are essentially easy to kill.
• Predators have stealth and exotic weapons, but they deplete their power.
• Aliens are fast and stealthy, but can’t use any weapons, other than their own bodies.

Also in multiplayer, there are more game specific modes, such as Infestation, where several marines are allied against a single Alien. The catch is, should the alien kill a marine, then they too become an alien. This game of cat and mouse continues until there is only one Marine left, forcing them to survive as long as possible with only the assistance of a weapon upgrade. There is the Predator hunt mode, that tasks a group of hunters with killing an alien for points, more kills more points. Lastly, there have been rumors of another offering for the Colonial Marines that will be similar to Gears of War 2’s popular Hoard mode. As you would expect, this features marines fighting off wave after wave of aliens.

Set to release mid February, you can get the standard version for any of the high definition platforms, PS3, Xbox 360, or PC. With the 360 and PS3, you also have the option to buy the Limited Edition package, called the “Hunter” edition, which includes:

• The game disc(duh!),
• Access to 4 multiplayer maps before the general public does
• Dark Horse graphic novel
• Weyland-Yutani patch
• A lenticular Post Card
• AND a face hugger with fully articulating limbs.

All of this can be yours for about $100. Even speaking from the perspective of a diehard fan of the Aliens and Predator films, this is not enough to warrant shelling out one hundred bones, especially if the game isn’t going to hold up. However, for sixty dollars I will still be looking forward to playing this one. I hope that others will as well, if for nothing else then to support the multiplayer.

Game: Bayonetta
Publisher: SEGA
Price: $59.99
Platform: Xbox 360
Pros: Outrageous visuals and story backed by fantastic gameplay and controller mechanics
Cons: Feminists may need to check their ire at the door
Review Copy Provided By Publisher

A lot of the pre-release buzz on this game can be summed up in the phrase, “oh, god, not another cutscene.” I hate to be the lone voice in the wilderness on this, but I really enjoyed the cutscenes. I look at the battles as events that just interrupt my movie. My crazy-ass, angel-fighting, painted-on-leather-that’s-really-her-hair-outfit, what-kind-of-acid-were-they-dropping-when-they-made-this-game, “I can’t believe I just played this for another four hours again,” action-shooter-rpg-cinematic-fighter mash-up movie. Yeah, use THAT for your drop quote.

The game is published by Sega, and kudos to them for actually taking this kind of risk. This is not a known IP or franchise. This is visually unlike any game you’ve seen. There are RPG elements like potions in the form of lollipops, collecting loot in the form of halos and upgradeable and custom weaponry. There are fighting game elements like combos and fluid animation and lots of blood. There are cinematic cutscenes, motion comic story-flashbacks, a demon who runs a jazz bar where you buy your items, and a journalist chasing Bayonetta down. Oh, and a sidekick, a mysterious sister-witch, and a whole butt-load of backstory and implied world-building htat you have to see to believe. Plus some of the most over the top, crazy-insane visual moments we have EVER seen, in the form of the super fighting moves using, you guessed it, Bayonetta’s hair. There’s also a ton of hip-swaying, hyper-sexualization of the female form and some fairly decent voice acting. When I say mash-up, I mean more of a pile of disparate elements that should NOT fit together but somehow do. Like that wacky Mini-Game, Angel Attack, that gets thrown in between levels. Who the hell thought that up? It’s brilliant, and doesn’t distract from the game itself. It’s like it was MEANT to be there.

The game is simply way more fun than it has any right to be. Part of it is the outrageous succession of crazy “Torture Moves,” which include smashing demons with spiked wheels, ripping them apart in torture devices, and kicking them into Iron Maidens that appear at the end of the Torture animation. Another part is the over-the-top ultra-violence that really doesn’t take itself too seriously. Even the hyper-sexualized nature of the female characters begins to take on less of a offensive nature and more of a sly nod and a wink at all the drooling fanboys and girls who seem to think that this is how females SHOULD look.In the end, it’s so over-the-top and anime-centric that it really doesn’t maatter. no one’s gonna take this too seriously.

Bottom line, however, is how well this game plays. The controls are intuitive, predictable and responsive. Wild, long button combos are executed as a matter of fact, and finding new ones is part of the joy of playing through the battles. As Hideki Kamiya, the game’s director, says,

I’ve always said that I don’t say, “I want you to buy our game.” I say, “I want you to play our game.” So, the first thing that I would like you to check out is how it feels to play Bayonetta, as that feeling is something that is very important to us.

I firmly believe that this, above all other considerations, is why Bayonetta has legs. And wow, does she have legs. Ahem. Seriously, though, there will be much more appeal across gamer segments than many other games due to this simple fact: controlling the game is simple, beautiful, and fluid. Only once or twice did I see any stuttering, in later stages where the bosses just get CRAZY outrageous, instead of the early plain old garden-variety outrageous. Another time, in Chapter XII, a cutscene got ahead of the sound, and it took a moment for the two to sync up again. To not have any other issues in a game of this magnitude is simply stunning. The connection between hand, eye, and audio is simply some of the best to come out of gaming recently.

Let’s talk audio – please use surround sound systems or equivalent headphones. You’ll be doing yourself a huge favor. The environments are full and immersive. The soundtrack music matches the pacing of the story, the battles, and the almost-but-not-quite hell-shoppe perfectly. J-Pop screams behind very visual feast of a battle; cute music accompanies the interactions between the journalist Luka, Bayonetta, and the little girl, Cereza; smoky jazz accompanies the deep voice of Rodin as he braves the depths of hell to create custom weaponry. The voices are credible and solidly emotive. There must still be some technical or budgetary limitations to facial animations, however. While not as woodenly awful as Dragon Age, Bayonetta suffers from some of the puppet-face stillness most current games employ. Luckily, the body language of characters in-scene make up some of the lack; someone was paying attention in film school.

Now, cutscenes. You can believe that there are many of them; some fairly long. The voice acting is good – even the cheesy dialogue works. The music behind the video sets the mood well. The filmic iconography is stunning and quick. It’ll take a few playthroughs to catch all the visual imagery from Bayonetta’s past. Some cutscenes are fully animated, pre-rendered cutscenes, including battles. Others are like digital sculptures – the camera pans around the 3D models of characters while they voice over their thought and interactions. Still other scenes play out like motion comics, with a comic or painterly visual style. Like I said – a mashup of style and substance. The story manages, for the most part, to stay in that sacred place of being funny while never letting off the dramatic tension, in which the stakes seem high and the actions of the characters matter.

Ultimately,  Bayonetta succeeds where many other games in this vein do not: players are in the hands of a master game designer, one who’s been honing his craft since Resident Evil 2. The visuals are plenty outrageous and full of eye-candy, the controls are responsive and intuitive, and the story – while nearly overwhelming in it’s anime twisty turniness – actually feels like it matters. Bayonetta has it all, and we’re not just talking about dance moves or partial nudity, here.

You owe it to yourself to rent this game at least, if not outright own it. Like other instant classics, it takes a solid approach to gaming based on many familiar elements, bringing them all together into a — yeah, I’ll say it — brilliant gestalt that only the most jaded of gamers will find fault with.